Zayo lights up new fiber capacity for EAGLE-Net Alliance

Zayo has racked up yet another anchor institution customer on its roster for its growing fiber network by securing a new agreement with EAGLE-Net (Educational Access Gateway Learning Environment Network). Serving as a cost-sharing cooperative that will deliver broadband services to more than 230 community anchor institutions, EAGLE-Net will use Zayo to enhance its network capabilities in Colorado and Wyoming.

From Zayo, the cooperative will get 511 miles of dark fiber connecting locations from Cheyenne, Wyo., to Branson, Colo., near the New Mexico border.

While the announcement of the alliance with Zayo is new, the service provider was previously named as one of EAGLE-Net's local network partners in its application for the $100.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant it won in September 2010.

Randy Zila, CEO of EAGLE-Net, said that the new fiber will help it "reach its goal of connecting 72 percent of the 234 community anchor institutions throughout the state of Colorado by the end of August 2012."

Like other middle mile projects, EAGLE-Net's new network is all about providing a better Internet experience for area schools, providing affordable 1 Gbps connections to schools.

Before the advent of this new network, EAGLE-Net's CIO said in a Denver Business Journal article in September 2010 that Colorado schools now average 3.5 kilobits-per-second Internet access per student, well below the national average of 6.4 kilobits.